Epic Citadel Brings A Sneak Peek At Epic’s Project Sword

A gameplay screenshot from Epic Citadel

Nestled amongst the shiny new iPods and ridiculously small Apple TVs was Epic’s Project Sword. Gamers sneaking a peek at Apple’s live stream may have perked up when they saw a medieval RPG, complete with swords, for iOS devices.

Chair Entertainment, an Epic studio known for Undertow (meh) and Shadow Complex (awesome), is making Project Sword. They promise that “Project Sword will bring unrivaled visual fidelity and a highly accessible gameplay experience to the iOS platform.”

Indeed. They showed a castle and its surrounding environs that was highly detailed for an iPhone game. They also demoed a head-to-head battle between a hulking tank and a nimble swordsman.

It’s set to release during the holiday season, but there was no hint at cost or even a better sense of the multiplayer RPG gameplay that’s promised. And the game title sounds pretty temporary temporary. However, you can download Epic Citadel from the App Store and get a sneak peak at the visuals in Project Sword.

Once you download the massive app, you can navigate around a castle courtyard and surroundings in a first person perspective. If you have a iPhone 3Gs and an iPhone 4, you’ll definitely see the difference in processor power between the two. The 3GS stutters just a bit while the 4 is much smoother.

The controls come in two flavours. You can just click on a point at a point on the ground and you’ll move towards it like you would in Diablo. Or, there are virtual analog sticks: the left is for movement and the right for looking around. Epic Citadel feels like an abandoned medieval playground, waiting for characters to populate it.

It’s also missing social gaming hub Game Center, Apple’s reply to (and likely destruction of) OpenFeint. With Game Center (which will be available next week as a free app), you see what your friends are playing, which achievements they have, and even challenge them to beat your high score. Game Center also comes into play with games like Project Sword where it will matchmake you with players of similar skill.

[Epic Citadel]